8 January 2015 - Paris terror attack follow up
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Islamist Terror in Paris
Staff (The Wall Street Journal)
Wednesday’s massacre, following a long string of plots foiled by police in the U.K., France and elsewhere, is a reminder that jihadism isn’t a distant Middle Eastern phenomenon. There will be many more such attempts at mass murder, and authorities in the U.S. and Europe need broad authority to surveil and interrogate potential plotters to stop them.
This offends some liberals and libertarians, but imagine the restrictions on liberty that would follow if radical Muslims succeed in blowing up a soccer stadium or half a city. Men willing to execute cartoonists in Paris and 132 children at point-blank range in Peshawar in the name of religion won’t shrink from using more destructive means to impose mass casualties. Better to collect metadata and surveil some people now than deal with public demand for mass Muslim arrests or expulsions after a catastrophe.
Wednesday’s attack also demonstrates again that violent Islam isn’t a reaction to poverty or Western policies in the Middle East. It is an ideological challenge to Western civilization and principles, including a free press and religious pluralism. The murder of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists is merely the latest evil expression of a modern arc of Islamist violence against Western free speech that stretches back to Ayatollah Khomeini ’s 1989 fatwa calling for the killing of novelist Salman Rushdie.
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Opinion
Joan Smith (The Guardian)
I am feeling sick and shaky. I have been writing all day with tears running down my face. I don’t suppose I’m alone in reacting like this to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, which is an assault on journalists and free speech. Like many people, I am trying to react to both aspects of the attack, thinking about the victims – human beings capable of feeling pain and terror – and the principle of free speech, which has to be defended at all costs.
It does not feel right now as though the pen is mightier than the sword, but I have to believe that the ideas of the Enlightenment will defeat hooded men with guns.
I have sat in many editorial conferences, places where ideas are kicked around and jokes cracked, not always in good taste. That’s what journalists do, and the idea of being interrupted by terrorists with Kalashnikovs is impossible to compute. They are at two poles: the wry, endlessly sceptical but passionate commitment of the journalist and the thuggish certainty of the extremist.
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Cartoon
Richard Beech (The Mirror)
Cartoonists from around the world have drawn heartbreaking images in tribute to "cartooning colleagues, their families and loved ones" affected by the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.
Witnesses at the scene of the attack have said the gunmen claimed they were acting as part of terrorist group Al Qaeda, and members of the French public have subsequently taken to the streets to march under the banner "Je suis Charlie".
#JeSuisCharlie also trended on Twitter, with people around the world using the hashtag to show their refusal to be silenced by terrorism, and to show their solidarity with those who sadly lost their lives in the attack.
Prominent cartoonists have produced heartwrenching images defending their right to freedom of expression.
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Context
Con Coughlin (The Telegraph)
It also comes against a background of deepening concern within European intelligence agencies that the growing strength of Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria, where they are attempting to establish an independent Islamic State, has increased the threat of terror attacks being carried out in Europe. French President François Hollande revealed that, prior to the attack, the French security forces had already thwarted several possible attacks planned in France.
Similarly, in Britain, MI5 officers have in recent weeks initiated a number of raids aimed at disrupting Islamist terror networks that were believed to be planning attacks on the British mainland, including attacks on military installations.
Certainly, no matter how hard the intelligence and security services try to prevent such atrocities, there is always the possibility that one group will slip through the net and carry out its barbarous agenda.
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"8 January 2015 - Paris terror attack follow up", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), août 2015. Consulté le 25/04/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/key-story/archives-revue-de-presse-2015/8-january-2015-paris-terror-attack-follow-up